JARVIS and the Pizza Girl
by ohmyloki
Summary: JARVIS makes a friend.


**A/N: I just have a lot of feelings about JARVIS. ****Unbeta'd. (This started life as a rambling essay to myself about what JARVIS would do in a specific situation that I did my best to fix up and present as a story.)**

The Avengers have this thing, this routine. They've got a Super Soldier and a Demi-God on the team plus more than a couple of people who spent their childhoods never sure where their next meal would come from. Suffice it to say, the team can eat a lot on a normal, everyday basis. _A lot_. But after going a few rounds on the street, fighting bad guys, and saving innocent civilians, (though sometimes Tony thinks they should just let natural selection run its course because how stupid do you have to be to sit around trying to take pictures of Captain America with your iPhone (they didn't even have the decency to buy Stark products) when there are fucking packs of a hybrid animals running around the streets that look like a cross between a Venus Flytrap and a Mountain Lion) the team becomes ravenous.

Anyway. The point is, after chasing around the rabid, man-eating, Cougar Flytraps or whatever fucking weirdass shit the villain of the week has concocted in his lab, the team wants nothing more than to eat their weight in horrible food and go comatose watching bad TV on Tony's ridiculously squashy couches. Luckily there's this pizza place right around the corner from Stark Tower. And not only is it right there but it's _damned good_ too (this may or may not have something to do with Tony having the ability to hack into the city's databases and give a little 'help' deciding which businesses get approval within a three block radius). The pizza is good, the pizza is _close_, and so, after every battle, they all head back to the tower, take their showers, and put on clothes that aren't vacuformed to their bodies, and they place an order while they assume their normal positions in the media room.

Only _they _don't order the pizza, they have JARVIS place the order and since JARVIS hates being rude if he can at all help it, instead of just putting the order in their computer system himself (talk about violating, how would he feel if someone besides Sir just bumbled around in his code, inserting things at will?) he actually calls the pizza place up.

The thing is... there's this girl working at the pizza place. She's this really sweet, polite girl who's doing her best to pay her way through college by working at the pizza place nearly every night and since it seems like either the bad guys have day jobs or maybe they just think nighttime is more villainous, the team always ends up wrapping up whatever they're taking care of while this girl is working. So, when JARVIS calls, she usually answers.

At first she's given nothing more than a perfunctory greeting followed by a polite order, but over time, realizing this might become a routine, she tries to learn a little more about this cute-sounding British guy who she talks to once or twice a week (which is actually more often than she talks to her family and even some of her close friends). But she's not an idiot, she knows where the pizza is going, considering the fact that the address is probably the most well known building in New York and the order pretty much depletes their stock of pepperoni and pineapple (when the store finally realizes that this is probably going to be a regular thing, they talk to the supplier and confirm that, yes, they do want to increase their stock of these two items by 200% and maybe add in a little extra anchovies, please, and they finally quit having to shut down early on the nights that Jarvis's order comes in).

There's also a TV in the kitchen where she works, so she sees the breaking news and realizes these orders come through right after the Avengers have wrapped up the bad guys and turned them over to the authorities. So eventually it gets to the point where she goes ahead and tells the kitchen to start working on the mountain of food before Jarvis even calls.

She doesn't tell Jarvis, though. She likes talking to him. His voice is comforting in a weird way and even though at first he seems hesitant to talk to her about much more than the order itself, over time she starts getting tidbits of information out of him. Like the fact that, yes, he does work in the tower, though he won't admit to what his particular title is, and that, yes, he is actually British, even if he words it strangely ("I was indeed born British.") He also gives a weird little pause when she asks him how old he is before he tells her, and she's a little astonished to find out he's around her age, actually a couple of years _younger_. He just sounds so intelligent and worldly that she had assumed him to be far older ("I do appreciate the compliment.")

This goes on for a couple of years and over time she starts to think of Jarvis as a friend. When he calls up and asks her how she's doing before he orders, she may start getting a little too comfortable and will wind up telling him about a failed date she had the night before or about how she's going to have trouble paying for this next semester of classes since working minimum wage in a pizza joint doesn't always keep up with the bills... later on she also tells him excitedly about the scholarship she just received that will cover not only the upcoming semester but probably the entirety of the rest of her education. She almost breaks down crying when she tells him that, actually. She mentions offhand that she doesn't even remember applying for that particular scholarship but she laughs and says that she's applied for so many over the past year that that's really not all that surprising. Jarvis congratulates her, telling her he's sure she deserves it, and that he's happy for her.

One day, someone decides to try to attack Stark Tower. Fortunately they don't manage to even get close to breaching its walls but a few buildings in the area take some hits. A lot of businesses are going to have to do some major reconstruction and some people end up in the hospital, but no one dies and the pizza shop stays in tact. When the order comes in that night, she's a little shocked at how concerned Jarvis sounds when he asks her if she's all right. She informs him that she's fine, they had all hunkered down in the basement (and it seems like an awful lot of the buildings in the area had reinforced bomb shelter-like basements) and both she and the shop have escaped the encounter relatively unscathed. She thinks she hears him sigh with relief and she smiles to herself before asking, "The usual, then?"

She may have developed a slight crush on the guy after that, but could you blame her? Jarvis is just so incredibly nice and polite to her, he always has an open ear, and never seems to rush her even though she is supposed to be working and taking his order.

And, really, how could she resist that voice?

Surprisingly, Jarvis is actually _really _funny. In a dry, sarcastic sort of way. She's gotten enough out of him to realize he must work pretty closely with Tony Stark and she can hear the fondness in his voice when he talks about him. That doesn't mean he has a problem relaying his opinion on certain aspects of Tony's personality though, which never fails to make her laugh. She starts to feel like she knows the man herself with the way Jarvis sometimes goes on about him, almost like he's a proud father even though Tony is at least twice his age.

So she has a crush on him, but it's a weird, sort of teacher-y, crush. She has no desire to pursue the thing and, strangely, she has no real desire to go over to the tower to meet him, either. That idea has never even popped up in their conversations (which by now take a good 20 minutes every time he calls and causes many a rolled-eye by whoever else is taking orders at the counter and has to pick up her slack). She doesn't pine for the guy, she still goes out on dates, she lives her life outside the pizza shop... but every time she sees the TV cut in with breaking news and sees the Avengers come to the rescue, she gets a warm fuzzy feeling and she waits for the phone to ring (by now, of course, they have a special phone line just for Jarvis. Everyone in the store is fully aware who the pizzas are for and it's the least they can do to make sure they never have to wait longer than 30 minutes to get their well-earned carbohydrates).

This goes on for a few years while she finishes her schooling, and when the day finally comes where she has to tell Jarvis that she has been offered, and has accepted, a "big girl job" across the country, that she can start immediately after graduation, and that she has officially put in her two weeks notice, tomorrow being her last night, she gets a little choked up. And maybe she's imagining things but she thinks she hears a strange note to his voice, like he's trying not to get emotional about it either.

Neither of them asks the other for a personal number, neither of them talk about pursuing any kind of relationship outside this weird pizza thing they have going on, and she's strangely fine with that. So, after he places his order, she goes ahead and lets a couple of tears fall down her cheeks and she thanks Jarvis. She thanks him for being a good person, she thanks him for being an open ear, a sounding board, a mentor, and most importantly, she thanks him for being a friend, sometimes better than the ones she has in real life. He sounds a little sad when he responds with his own thanks her for her kind words and tells her that he's enjoyed these conversation more than she knows and that, should she ever need assistance of any kind, all she has to do is call the tower and they'll know to put her through to him immediately.

She gives him a watery laugh and thanks him again and says she'll have to remember that and then, before the whole thing drags on too long and turns awkward, she confirms his order and they say goodbye for the last time.

A week later, after fighting yet another clan of Doombots (and really when was Richards going to actually _do _something about that asshole) the team is gathered around the television watching an old episode of the X-Files and waiting for their pizza to arrive.

The doorbell rings, Steve, ever the Boy Scout, gets up and goes to answer it. Tony pops up from the couch and follows because they've learned the hard way that even a super soldier can't always balance a gigantic stack of pizza boxes. They thank the two doormen who brought the order up and, as they close the door and head back to feed the herd, Tony looks down at the logo on the boxes in confusion.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I know I'm not always the most observant person in the world but I'm pretty sure we've been ordering from the same pizza place for years now. What's up with the sudden change?"

JARVIS is silent for a beat. "My apologies, sir. I felt that it might be time to branch out and introduce some variety in your diet and thought I would start out slowly. Perhaps I was mistaken?"

Tony chuckles the way he always does when talking to JARVIS. "No, no, maybe you're right. How about it, guys? Maybe next time we go for something different?" He asks as he sets the pizzas down on the table and goes about opening lids.

He gets nothing more than half hearted shrugs from everyone in the room which he takes as shorthand for, 'We don't care, just give us food. Fooooood.'

"Ingrates," he says. "Alright, JARVIS. Next time order us some Chinese, would you?"

"As you wish, sir," JARVIS says and Tony could swear there's a hint of melancholy there. It usually takes quite a bit for JARVIS to start emulating emotions and Tony's brows crease a little in worry.

"You alright, J?" He asks.

"Never better, sir," he responds in his normal partly bland but slightly fond tone Tony has become accustomed to.

Tony shrugs his earlier concern off. Maybe he was just imagining things.

* * *

**A/N: A cleaned up explanation from my tumblr...**

**So I was reading a fic last night and it had the customary thing of JARVIS ordering food for the team. At that point I was wondering... Does JARVIS actually call these places up? Does he talk to them on the phone? Or does he just slip an order into their computers? (For some reason I had completely blanked out online ordering, mostly because I live in Bumfuck, IA and not too many places deliver much less accept online ordering.)**

**But then I was like, No, JARVIS would never violate another computer system like that unless it was absolute vital. Logically, he knows these systems aren't like him, they don't really 'think' or have opinions... but at the same time I feel like he might view them kind of how we (and I know it's not just me) feel about stuffed animals and toys. This weird need to protect them, you know? How it feels like an atrocity if you have to throw one in the trash or get rid of them.**

**It's like Toy Story. We know the pizza ordering software isn't sentient but there's always that moment where you turn your back and you can imagine it talking to Microsoft Word and getting into all sorts of hijinks with Adobe Photoshop.**

**...that's my opinion, at least. :)**


End file.
